| |
| HE stood before the Sanhedrim; | |
| The scowling rabbis gazed at him; | |
| He recked not of their praise or blame; | |
| There was no fear, there was no shame | |
| For one upon whose dazzled eyes | 5 |
| The whole world poured its vast surprise. | |
| The open heaven was far too near, | |
| His first day’s light too sweet and clear, | |
| To let him waste his new-gained ken | |
| On the hate-clouded face of men. | 10 |
| |
| But still they questioned, Who art thou? | |
| What hast thou been? What art thou now? | |
| Thou art not he who yesterday | |
| Sat here and begged beside the way, | |
For he was blind.
And I am he; | 15 |
| For I was blind, but now I see. | |
| |
| He told the story o’er and o’er; | |
| It was his full heart’s only lore; | |
| A prophet on the Sabbath day | |
| Had touched his sightless eyes with clay, | 20 |
| And made him see, who had been blind. | |
| Their words passed by him like the wind | |
| Which raves and howls, but cannot shock | |
| The hundred-fathom-rooted rock. | |
| |
| Their threats and fury all went wide; | 25 |
| They could not touch his Hebrew pride; | |
| Their sneers at Jesus and his band, | |
| Nameless and homeless in the land, | |
| Their boasts of Moses and his Lord, | |
| All could not change him by one word. | 30 |
| |
| I know not that this man may be, | |
| Sinner or saint; but as for me, | |
| One thing I know, that I am he | |
| Who once was blind, and now I see. | |
| |
| They were all doctors of renown, | 35 |
| The great men of a famous town, | |
| With deep brows, wrinkled, broad, and wise, | |
| Beneath their wide phylacteries; | |
| The wisdom of the East was theirs, | |
| And honor crowned their silver hairs; | 40 |
| The man they jeered and laughed to scorn | |
| Was unlearned, poor, and humbly born; | |
| But he knew better far than they | |
| What came to him that Sabbath day; | |
| And what the Christ had done for him, | 45 |
| He knew, and not the Sanhedrim. | |
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